And as _Glasses_ have highly promoted our _seeing_, so ’tis not improbable, but that there may be found many _Mechanical Inventions_ to improve our other Senses, of _hearing_, _smelling_, _tasting_, _touching._ ’Tis not impossible to hear a _whisper_ a _furlongs_ distance, it having been already done; and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more impossible, though that furlong should be ten times multiply’d. And though some famous Authors have affirm’d it impossible to hear through the _thinnest plate_ of _Muscovy-glass_; yet I know a way, by which ’tis easie enough to hear one speak through a _wall a yard thick_. It has not been yet thoroughly examin’d, how far _Otocousticons_ may be improv’d, nor what other wayes there may be of _quickning_ our hearing, or _conveying_ sound through _other bodies_ then the _Air_: for that that is not the only _medium_, I can assure the Reader, that I have, by the help of a _distended wire_, propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an _instant_, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light, at least, incomparably swifter then that, which at the same time was propagated through the Air; and this not only in a straight line, or direct, but in one bended in many angles. Nor are the other three so perfect, but that _diligence_, _attention_, and many _mechanical contrivances_, may also highly improve them. For since the sense of _smelling_ seems to be made by the _swift passage_ of the _Air_ (_impregnated_ with the steams and _effluvia_ of several odorous Bodies) through the grisly _meanders_ of the Nose whose surfaces are _cover’d_ with a very sensible _nerve_, and _moistned_ by a _transudation_ from the _processus mamillares_ of the Brain, and some adjoyning _glandules_, and by the moist _steam_ of the _Lungs_, with a Liquor convenient for the reception of those _effluvia_ and by the adhesion and mixing of those steams with that liquor, and thereby affecting the nerve, or perhaps by insinuating themselves into the juices of the brain, after the same manner, as I have in the following Observations intimated, the parts of Salt to pass through the skins of Effs, and Frogs. Since, I say, smelling seems to be made by some such way, ’tis not improbable, but that some contrivance, for making a great quantity of Air pass quick through the Nose, might as much promote the sense of smelling, as the any wayes hindring that passage does dull and destroy it. Several tryals I have made, both of hindring and promoting this sense, and have succeeded in some according to expectation; and indeed to me it seems capable of being improv’d, for the judging of the constitutions of many Bodies. Perhaps we may thereby also judge (as other Creatures seem to do) what is wholsome, what poyson; and in a word, what are the specifick properties of Bodies.